


Pizza isn't meant to hurt people

by Rei



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rei/pseuds/Rei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the record - it wasn’t Dustin’s fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta-reader** : poemwithnorhyme, who was incredibly fast. Thank you so much! =) All mistakes left are mine.
> 
>  **Author's note** : This was meant to be tag-fic to hope_calaris' fic [here](http://community.livejournal.com/hexenzirkel/44426.html#cutid1), where she mentioned Eduardo having a shellfish-allergy. She forced me to write this. Like really. She sat on me. She threatened me. She made puppy dog eyes. She used every little sister-trick known to mankind. She was evil.

For the record - it wasn’t Dustin’s fault.  
No really, it wasn’t.  
It was Wardo’s very own fault for being distracted. And tired. But more for being distracted.

“Pizza?” Dustin had asked.  
“Any special requests?” he had asked.

An easy enough question, right? Right. But somehow Wardo had been too busy starring at the back of Mark’s head (he sat on Mark’s bed and was supposed to be learning, except he wasn’t, not really) to say something along the lines of “ _anything except shellfish is fine, because one tiny piece of shellfish is probably going to kill me_ ”. Or, you know, something similar. Maybe a little less dramatic would’ve been fine, too.

But he didn’t say that. The only thing he said was: “Chilies, pepperoni and double cheese for Mark”, because Mark couldn’t be bothered to answer and would probably forget to eat anyway if Wardo didn’t force feed him.

So it absolutely wasn’t Dustin’s fault. He _had asked_ , okay?

Chris wanted something vegetarian (“anything is fine”), which wasn’t very specific either.  
Dustin liked to have a little bit of everything on his pizza, except anchovies, because anchovies were gross. So he had decided Chris and Mark could share a pizza. Chris could totally ignore the pepperoni and eat the double cheese and chilies, right? Could a pizza be any more vegetarian? Surely not.  
So he ordered two large pizzas, one for Mark and Chris and one with everything except anchovies for Wardo and himself. Because Wardo still _hadn’t said anything!_

Well yeah, okay…maybe Wardo had fallen asleep on Mark’s bed in the meantime. Maybe.  
But still. He hadn’t exactly…you know…protested.

So it wasn’t Dustin’s fault.  
It really, really wasn’t. He absolutely refuses to feel guilty.

*

“It’s my fault.”

“It’s not.”

“Chris! I practically _killed_ him.”  
He needs to stop talking. He’s going to cry if he keeps talking, he knows he will. So he absolutely needs to shut up now.

“You didn’t kill him.”

“What would _you_ know? I could as well have stabbed him with my own hands!”  
So much for no more talking. Dustin groans desperately.  
“I must be the only person on earth who is able to kill someone with a pizza,” he says hollowly. “How do these things always happen to me? How?”

“Quit being so melodramatic.”  
Chris’ voice is calm and matter-of-fact, but his hands are warm and gentle on his neck. He pets Dustin’s hair, soft, little brushes and it’s so nice and so comforting, and Dustin knows he shouldn’t enjoy this so much. He doesn’t deserve it.  
His pizza almost killed Wardo and that’s the only reason they’re here right now.

He throws a nervous glance in Mark’s direction.  
Mark, who hasn’t said anything since they've been sitting here.

*

“Wardo?” Dustin drops down on Mark’s bed next to Wardo. He’s bored. He wants someone to entertain him. But Wardo’s head rests on his arms, his eyes are closed, and he doesn’t move even as Dustin starts to bounce. “Wardo?”

“He’s asleep,” Mark says without turning away from the laptop and for a second Dustin wonders how he _does_ that. He hasn’t stopped coding for the last three hours and Dustin is pretty sure he hasn’t turned around once during the whole time. It’s a miracle he still knows what’s happening around him.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks.

Mark doesn’t bother to turn around. “Two.”

Dustin gasps, because it’s totally true. “How many now?”

“Three.”

“I _knew_ it! You’re not human. We should drop out of Harvard and start making money with your psychic abilities. What else can you do? Except using the eyes in the back of your head and surviving four days without sleep?”

“The likelihood that you held up two fingers was about 70 percent,” Mark explains without turning around. “Three fingers would’ve been 27 percent. People almost never use four, five or only one finger, so it was merely a fifty-fifty-chance.”

“That can’t be true,” Dustin protests more as a matter of principle than true conviction.

Mark shrugs with the self-righteous air of someone who’s always right and doesn’t even bother discussing things like that.  
Mark sucks. He really, really sucks.

“Doesn’t Wardo sleep an awful lot lately?” Dustin asks after five minutes of silence, just to say something.  
Chris is still under the shower, so nobody’s talking to him and Dustin feels ignored. Mark is always ignoring people, so that’s nothing new, but Wardo usually isn’t. Well, not when he’s awake at least. It’s boring when Wardo’s not awake.

“No.” Mark keeps typing, but if Dustin isn’t mistaken he sounds more forceful than before.

“Yesterday he fell asleep while we played ‘Steel Cage Battle Babes IV’!” Now that he’s thinking about it …that is rather worrying. He frowns. “He’s not sleeping enough, is that it?”

Mark shrugs.

“Why?” Dustin asks. Questioningly he lifts Wardo’s limp wrist and lets it flop down to the bed, but Wardo doesn’t even twitch. He does look rather exhausted. “It’s only midterm.”

“Apparently his father is only sufficiently impressed with him if Wardo works until his brain starts to bleed out of his ears.”  
It sounds biting and people who don’t know Mark as well as Dustin knows him would assume he’s an uncaring jerk. But Dustin knows him and he knows that sarcasm is Mark’s way of being angry.  
He doesn’t get to ask about that though, because at this exact moment the doorbell rings.

“Pizza!” Dustin yells.  
And this is, innocently enough, the moment where everything goes south.  
Which is so wrong on so many levels. It’s only _pizza_.

*

“They aren’t talking to us. Why isn’t anybody talking to us?”

“Because we’re not family,” Chris explains patiently for the third time. Or maybe it’s already the fourth time, Dustin can’t really remember. Chris is a saint.  
Chris is also keeping him mostly sane, which is a miracle, because the last two hours might have been the longest two hours in Dustin’s life. And this includes the two hours he once spent under the bed of an ex-girlfriend, while said ex-girlfriend was having hot and steamy sex with her new boyfriend on top of the bed. And don’t ask what he had been doing there in the first place. Just don’t.

“They _should_ talk to us,” he says stubbornly. “We’re his _best_ friends!”

“I know.”

“What if he needs something? Maybe he’s going to need a blood transfusion! Or a donor kidney. And we wouldn’t know, because they don’t tell us. _Chris!_ What if he needs a donor kidney? I could’ve given him mine, I would’ve given him mine, I would, but now it’s too late, because they don’t TELL US ANYTHING!” He feels like hyperventilating.

“Wardo’s _not_ going to need a kidney. I promise.” Chris is a saint. Did he mention that Chris is a saint? Dustin isn’t sure, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because nobody’s talking to them and Mark hasn’t looked at him since they arrived here and Wardo’s gone, just gone and he doesn’t even know where they took him to.  
It’s terrible and he hates it.

“Mark…” he says softly, desperately, because that is the only thing he can fix right now.

Mark doesn’t answer and he doesn’t look up from his laptop. That’s not exactly encouraging.  
On the other hand, it’s _Mark_. It’s completely normal Mark-behavior to code during the weirdest circumstances. It’s completely normal Mark-behavior to ignore you until you go away.  
But right now it’s terrifying, because Dustin somehow managed to hurt the one person Mark pays almost as much attention to as he pays to his laptop.

Dustin licks his lips and tries again. “Mark…?”

He doesn’t stop typing and Dustin swallows. He shares a helpless look with Chris, who only shrugs.  
Oh god. Even Chris doesn’t know what to do.  
Dustin is so screwed. He’s so screwed.

“AB negative.”

“What?”  
It’s the first thing Mark says and _obviously_ it has to be something that makes no sense whatsoever. Because it’s Mark.

“You’ve got the wrong blood group, so your kidney wouldn’t help Wardo anyway. It would probably kill him.”

“Oh.” Dustin swallows. Of course it would.  
Now he feels even more like a failure. Even his blood is the wrong kind of wrong. Even his blood that he didn’t even have a chance to offer could kill Wardo.  
Chris sighs and he’s petting his hair again, but not even that can cheer him up now.

*

“Pass me a beer.”

“Mark, get Chris a beer,” Dustin orders, because he’s already juggling the pizza, the can opener and the remote control and juggling is not exactly his strong suit, okay?

“Chris, get your own beer,” Mark replies. He sits on the couch, his laptop on his knees and he’s typing with one hand. Mark is such an addict.  
Chris sighs long-sufferingly.

Dustin grins and he walks next door to wake up Wardo, who lies still passed out on Mark’s bed.  
“Wardo!”  
He groans. “…gnh?”  
Dustin dangles a piece of pizza in front of Wardo’s face.  
“Guess what’s hot and greasy!” he singsongs.

“Please keep your pants on, Dustin…,” Wardo murmurs half-asleep.

“Dude! The _pizza_.” Dustin manages to sound affronted. You drop your pants one time (once!) and some people never let you live it down. It was political, okay? He was making a _statement_.

“What?”

“Here’s your pizza.”

“Oh, did I …? Thanks.” Wardo yawns and rubs his hand across his eyes. He still looks pretty out of it. His gaze drifts almost automatically towards Mark’s desk that is now deserted and for a second he frowns as if he’s trying to remember what happened. “What did I order?”

“The usual,” Dustin says, because when you get a pizza with everything on it, ‘the usual’ surely is covered, right? “You awake now? Do you feel like joining us?” He points to the living room, where Mark and Chris are arguing about the program.

“Not shark week again,” he hears Mark protest.  
“What? I love shark week!”Chris sounds scandalized.  
“Shark week is lame.”  
“It’s not. It’s cool. Have you seen the teeth?”  
“How are _teeth_ cool?”

Dustin shakes his head and beams at Wardo. “See what you’re missing out on?”

Wardo returns the smile, slowly props himself up on his elbows and yawns. “Just give me a minute.”  
Absentmindedly he takes a small bite. He still doesn’t sound fully awake.

He needs more than a minute. Or maybe it’s less, it’s hard to tell afterwards, when they keep asking him questions about how long it took, how much did he swallow, when did he…  
But this is how Dustin remembers it afterwards: One minute everything is fine and it’s good, Dustin is wedged between Mark and Chris and munches his pizza and the next…the next minute everything is wrong.

“Dustin…?” It’s Wardo.

“What? Oh God!” Dustin doesn’t look up because there’s a huge-ass shark about to kill a dolphin which looks exactly like Flipper and he used to love Flipper, okay? Flipper can’t die! He just can’t! “Don’t let him eat you! Swim away! No!”  
He’s alternately hiding his face in Chris’ shoulder or shaking Chris, who is remarkably patient about being used as a pillow.  
Mark couldn’t care less about Flipper’s gruesome destiny and he keeps coding. The heartless bastard.

“Dustin.” It’s Wardo’s voice again and this time Dustin raises his head, because Wardo sounds…strange. Not as if there’s anything seriously wrong, he just sounds just…strange.

“What?”

Wardo leans against the wall next to the door and he stares at the half-eaten piece of pizza in his hand as if it’s a snake about to bite him. “What is on the pizza?”

“Sorry?”

“What. Is. On. The. Pizza?” Wardo pronounces it slowly, carefully.

“A little bit of everything. Why? Is it bad?” Dustin looks down at his own share. Looks just fine to him.

“Everything?” Wardo’s voice is still weird, even though Dustin can’t pinpoint what it is. The typing next to him stops. “Which is what, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Pepperoni, ham, onions, tuna, mushrooms, sweet corn, chilies, shrimps…,” Dustin lists.

“Oh.” And now Dustin suddenly gets why Wardo sounds strange. It’s because he’s _wheezing_. He keeps taking careful, forced, little breaths as if he has been running for a really long time. Which is weird, because he hasn’t run anywhere.

“Wardo.” Mark sounds awake all of the sudden and his voice is sharp. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you okay?” Chris asks worried.

Wardo nods and shakes his head a second later. He looks dazed and confused. “Yes. No.”  
His face is pale. “I don’t…” He stops and clears his throat. “I… I think I’m allergic to shellfish.”It sounds almost like a question.

Dustin blinks. “What? What do you mean, allergic? Are you going to break out in a rash or…”

Wardo doesn’t answer and he doesn’t need to answer, because at this very moment his legs decide to buckle and he ends up on his knees. He starts coughing. With one hand he jerks at the collar his shirt as if he’s about to suffocate and it takes Dustin a moment to realize that, shit, shit, SHIT, he isn’t joking, this is serious and Wardo is suffocating!

He watches in slow motion as Chris kneels next to Wardo all of the sudden and starts to shake him. He’s yelling something. And when has Chris moved?  
It feels surreal like a dream.

Chris is talking. Dustin hears the words, but it doesn’t make sense. “Where’s your epi-pen? Look at me! Do you have an epi-pen? _Wardo!_ ”

Wardo shakes his head. His face is white and his doe-eyes are huge and scared. He tries to talk, Dustin sees his mouth moving, but he chokes on the words as if they’re lodged in his throat. He coughs again, more forcefully this time.

“Okay. It’s okay. We’ll work it out. Dustin!” Chris orders sharply. “ _Dustin!_ ”  
And Dustin snaps out of it. His pizza lands on the floor as he jumps up and he couldn’t care less.

“Yes!”

“Call 911,” Chris says. “Now! And give _me_ the phone.”

911\. Call 911.  
People say stuff like that in movies, but they don’t say it in real life. They just…don’t. Because if they do, it means something is horribly, horribly wrong. And how can it go so wrong so fast, when it’s just pizza?  
 _Call 911._  
His fingers are shaking as he dials. What’s happening? What’s wrong with Wardo?  
His cousin is allergic to nuts, but he only starts scratching and breaks out in a rash and it’s not that bad, it’s funny, it’s nothing dangerous…he’s not dying or something and…oh God, oh God, what if Wardo…?  
He throws a gaze at Mark, because if he’s struggling to comprehend the gravity of the situation then Mark’s whole being probably fails to compute.

Mark stands next to Dustin and he looks completely frozen. His laptop lays abandoned on the table and he just stares at Wardo as if he doesn’t really understand what’s happening.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll get help. You’ll be all right.” Chris voice is soothing and calm as he talks to Wardo, but there’s an underlying dread that makes Dustin panic. “Mark! Come here. _Mark!_ ”

Dustin watches as Mark moves, stiff and careful as if he walks across a frozen lake and expects the ice to break any moment. He kneels next to Wardo, hovering close by, painfully close in fact, but not touching him and Dustin thinks, _maybe he wants to_.  
But Mark doesn’t. He keeps hovering though.

“Wardo, look at me.” Chris demands insistent. “Calm down. You _need_ to calm down.”

“Can’t…”Wardo shakes his head. His eyes are closed and he coughs again. It’s an ugly, wheezing sound that makes Dustin’s throat hurt in sympathy.  
“I can’t… I can’t breathe…” he gasps. He sounds about as panicked and scared as Dustin feels.

“I know.” Chris nods. To Mark he hisses: “Stay with him!” while he jerks the phone out of Dustin’s hand.  
“This is an emergency! My friend can’t breathe,” he yells down the line. He rattles off their address and the words ‘ _shellfish_ ’, ‘ _no epi-pen_ ’ and ‘ _pizza_ ’ get a whole new dimension of horrible and wrong, wrong, wrong.  
It’s just _pizza_. Pizza isn’t meant to hurt people.

Dustin gets down on his knees next to Wardo and it’s not only because his legs turn to jelly. They need to do something. Anything. He tries to catch a glimpse of Mark’s eyes, tries for some silent communication a’la ‘OMG I’M FREAKING OUT HERE, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW?!’, but Mark isn’t looking at him, he’s only seeing Wardo.

“I’ll wait outside for the ambulance and show them the way.” Chris says from the door. His face is white and the fingers with which he’s holding the phone are shaking. “They should be here soon. Keep him calm!”

Dustin forces himself to nod, because if he can almost kill Wardo with pizza, he can at least try to keep him calm.

Though before he can do anything Wardo’s hand shoots out and clutches at Mark’s shirt like a lifeline.  
“I can’t…” It sounds painful. He’s shaking and his whole body is so tense that Dustin can see the strained sinews underneath the skin. His breathing becomes more irregular with the minute and that can’t be good. “Mark…”  
He sounds scared and frantic and God yes, Dustin is scared out of his wits, too and he’s not even the one who can’t breathe.

No freaking out. Not now. Wardo needs to stay calm. Chris said he needs to stay calm, so it’s probably important, but how the hell do you help someone to stay calm who is about to ASPHYXIATE?!  
Dustin feels like hyperventilating himself a little.

“It’s okay,” he says, even though it’s a lie. Nothing is okay and he doesn’t even know why he always believes it when Chris says it and _how does Chris even do this thing where everybody believes him_? “You’ll be fine. Don’t…don’t worry too much about the no breathing-thing. Breathing is massively overrated, right? It’s probably all just propaganda from the oxygen-lobby. You’ll be fine. David Blaine managed to hold his breath for 17 minutes, can you believe that? It was on Oprah, so it must be true.” He’s rambling.

Wardo doesn’t seem to be listening. His whole body is shaking and he makes painful little sounds as if there’s just not enough air in the whole world.

“Wardo…,” Dustin says helplessly and at the same time Mark finally starts talking.

“There…” Marks voices falters and he clears his throat, before he starts again. “There were five primary goals in the creation of the Java language.”

Dustin stares at him, stunned.

“First: Simplicity, object orientation, and familiarity.”

Dustin blinks, because…what? Seriously? What?

“Second: Robustness and security,” Mark continues. “Third: Architecture neutrality and portability. Fourth…”

Wardo makes a choked, little sound and it takes Dustin a moment to realize, that he actually tries not to laugh. Or maybe he’s trying to not to cry. It doesn't really matter because Mark keeps talking.

Dustin knows he should interrupt him. He knows he should tell him ‘ _wrong time, wrong place, Mark, **again**_!’ but he doesn’t, because somehow and for reasons unknown and beyond comprehension Wardo listens to him.  
Just like he always listens when Mark says something, anything, no matter what, even if it’s just strings and strings of meaningless code.  
It’s never meaningless to Wardo, Dustin realizes.

Wardo exhales slowly and closes his eyes.  
It’s as if every ounce of strength left in his body deserts him and he loosens his death grip on Mark’s shirt. He sinks limply against Mark and his head comes to rest on Mark’s chest.  
His ridiculously puffy hairstyle is ruined and sweaty hair sticks to his forehead. His eyes are half-shut and his breath still comes in deep, rattling gasps, but he looks calmer somehow.

“Unlike C++, which combines the syntax for structured, generic, and object-oriented programming, Java was built almost exclusively as an object-oriented language.” Mark licks his dry lips, but he doesn’t stop. He talks about C and C++ and syntax, operator overloading and multiple inheritance, endless lines of words and codes and rules. His voice is calm and self-assured and almost soothing in a way Mark can only ever sound when he’s talking about coding.

Mark’s hand rests on Wardo’s chest and it’s like he’s orchestrating Wardo’s breathing – in and out, in and out - almost as if he’s synchronizing it to his own rhythm, with words and little touches. And maybe he is. Dustin isn’t sure, he keeps silent and just watches, and Wardo gets quieter and quieter with every second, which might be a good thing or a horribly bad thing, he doesn’t know.

“In object-oriented programming,” Mark says softly, gently, as if he’s reciting a poem, “a method is a subroutine that is exclusively associated either with a class, in which case it is called a class method or a static method, or with an object in which case it is an instance method…” Suddenly he stops. “Wardo?” His voice breaks.  
There’s no reaction and his whole body seems to freeze. “ _Wardo!_ ”

It’s the last thing Dustin remembers with crystal clarity before half a dozen people stream into their room and everything else becomes a blur of movement and yelled orders…Mark shaking Wardo and repeating his name like a mantra. And Wardo doesn’t move, doesn’t talk and doesn’t breathe anymore…


	2. Chapter 2

Dustin is pretty much conditioned to the monotone sound of Mark’s typing, he hears it 24/7 after all. And even though it grates on his nerves how Mark can be so…composed, so unaffected, it’s soothing somehow and it calms him down.   
In combination with Chris’ fingers which comb through his hair every once in a while it’s no wonder he’s about to fall asleep, when eventually ( _finally!_ ) a doctor decides _now_ would be a good time to talk to them.

Someone clears her throat. “Are you here for Mr. Saverin?”

“What…? Yes!” Dustin jumps up so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. “ _Yes!_ How is he? Where is he? Can we see him? Is he going to be okay? Is he…”

He realizes too late that he’s rambling again. Chris moves to stand next to him and rests his hand on Dustin’s shoulder. Dustin stops talking and just chews nervously on his lower lip. This is always the worst part, at least in the movies.

The doctor is a young woman, blonde and maybe in her early thirties maybe. She looks tired and not exactly keen on talking to a bunch of young nerds.   
“He’s awake,” she says clipped and unceremoniously.

Awake. _Awake!_   
‘Awake’ means he’s alive and for a second Dustin is so relieved that he almost can’t breathe. It’s all going to be okay now. Wardo’s alive and he’s awake.

“How is he?” Chris asks and he sounds as relieved as Dustin feels.

“He’s doing well considering the circumstances. Well, mostly.”

Okay. That sounds good, that sounds great, except for the ‘ _mostly_ ’, which sounds unsettling. “What does that mean?”

To his surprise it’s actually Mark who answers.   
“I assume he responded well to the epinephrine”, he states. “Wikipedia says there is no contraindication, but Wikipedia could be lying.” He sounds frustrated as if he’s going to personally hold Wikipedia responsible for every mistake they might have made, especially if it concerns Wardo. “You gave him epinephrine”, he adds and it’s more of a statement than a question. Mark doesn’t do questions.   
Dustin supposes it has something to do with feeling at a disadvantage if you have to rely on somebody else for information. Or something.

The doctor raises an eyebrow and she slowly turns to him. “I think you should leave the medical treatment to the doctors, don’t you think? We know what we’re doing.”

Mark doesn’t stop. “You had to prevent pulmonary aspiration; so of course, you did have to intubate him.” He frowns the way he always does when he’s trying to force his brain to work faster. “Kidney failure is a possibility”, he says and nothing makes sense, not to Dustin, but at least he knows now what Mark has been doing the whole time.   
He hasn’t been coding, that’s for sure.

“No,” she replies, obviously annoyed and exasperated.

“Cardiac arrest,” Mark adds and his voice sounds strange. “But that would mean you had to reanimate him.”

“No!” Obviously she realizes she has to give him _something_ or Mark is going to…Dustin doesn’t even know what he’s going to do otherwise. “We didn’t have to reanimate him, _but_ he did show signs of arrhythmia. We’re going to keep him here for observation and there are going to be some more tests, but not tonight.”

Arrhythmia. Dustin has only the slightest idea what that means. It doesn’t sound good. Mark looks intense and focused as if he memorizes the word for later research.

“Can we see him?” Chris asks rather hesitantly.

“Visiting hours are over. Usually I would ask you to come back tomorrow, but he specifically asked to see you.” She sounds almost disbelieving and it’s clear that she doesn’t approve. “He wouldn’t calm down until we allowed it. Well, I can only advice you not to overexert him.”

 _Overexert?_ His ass! Dustin is about to tell her where she can stuff her advice, but Chris stops him with a stern look, before he thanks her politely. He’s just too nice for the world.

Dustin can hardly wait until she finally vanishes. Then he grabs Chris arm and starts dragging him along. It takes him a second to realize that a certain type of shuffling steps is missing, so he stops and turns around.

Mark sits still on the plastic chair, looking hunched and miserable. His fingers play idly with his laptop.

“Mark?” Dustin frowns. “Get a move on, will you?”

“I…” He clears his throat. “I should go back to Kirkland.”

“What?” Dustin splutters. He shares a disbelieving look with Chris. “Dude? What the hell is wrong with you? We spent hours waiting for him and now you suddenly don’t want to see him?”

Mark flinches uncomfortably, but he doesn’t look up. “He’s fine. He’s going to be fine. The doctor said he is. He doesn’t need to see me. He’s probably asleep anyway.”

“Mark.” It’s very seldom that Chris uses this particular tone of voice, but when he does, most people do listen to him. Well, Dustin does. “He _asked_ for you.”

That’s not entirely true since the doctor said he asked for all of them, but Dustin thinks it’s a pretty safe guess that he probably asked for Mark first.   
There’s really no room for argument, but Mark is nothing if not stubborn.   
“Yeah, but…he probably just needs somebody to fetch him a toothbrush.”

And this is the moment where Dustin wants to grab him and start shaking some sense into him. Because seriously? A toothbrush?

“Mark,” Chris says slowly. He sounds as if he’s losing patience and he’s losing it fast. “Get your ass in gear. Now. Or I swear I’m going to hack your livejournal and post an entry with pictures of your penis.”

This threat causes Mark to finally raise his head. He looks actually scandalized. “You can’t hack my livejournal.”

Chris shrugs. “I make Dustin do it. _He_ can.”

Dustin nods. “I totally can.”

And this is how they eventually end up in front of Wardo’s room, Chris looking as if he’s at the end of his rope, Dustin chewing on his nails like a maniac and Mark seems ready to bolt any minute now.

It’s kind of unsettling, Dustin thinks in a moment of startling clarity, how everything starts to deteriorate without Wardo. How it spirals out of control so fast when he isn’t there.   
As if he’s the glue who’s holding everything together. Or like… If Mark is the brain and Chris is the spine and Dustin, well, he’s probably the stomach… then Wardo is the heart of the whole.

Rapidly Dustin shakes his head. It’s proof of how tired and distressed he is that he’s actually thinking stuff like that. He needs to stop thinking, seriously. It’s just not good for him.

Chris is the one who opens the door to Wardo’s room.   
Chris is really brave, like a dragon slayer, facing the evil stuff, and way more brave than Dustin, because Dustin is scared shitless right now.  
It’s the whole hospital thing, all right? He just isn’t good with hospitals, never was. It reminds him too much of the fact that everybody can die, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, that people can just keel over and be dead and how very vulnerable all his friends and family are.  
It’s a terrifying, depressing thought that he prefers not to actively entertain.

He’s scared that Wardo’s not going to look like himself anymore, not like Wardo, but like a really sick person and he’s scared that there’s going to be a lot of tubes that run out of Wardo’s body like a horror movie.   
He’s relieved to see there are only two tubes connected to his body.   
One is connected to his left hand and a clear fluid is dripping through it, and the other one runs beneath his nose and it’s possibly for oxygen or something. Yes, oxygen. That would be good.   
Dustin still remembers the awful minutes on the floor in Kirkland when Wardo kept making those horrible wheezing noises and he _just couldn’t breathe…_  
Oxygen is good, he thinks. He approves.

Wardo luckily still looks like himself, only…less vibrant, less _there_. He seems smaller somehow and and a shade paler than usually.   
Wardo is usually pretty tan, the luck of being born a Brazilian (and yes, Dustin has a right to bitch, he’s a redhead and he gets freckles and horrible sunburns and it’s pretty awful, all right?), but right now he’s as white as Dustin has ever seen him.  
He looks tired and exhausted as if he’s barely managing to stay awake, but as soon as he sees them, a smile starts to spread across his face.   
“Hey guys”, he croaks. His voice sounds pretty damn awful.

“Wardo.” Dustin is the first one at his side. He hadn’t even realized he was moving. His fingers are shaking and he wants to touch him, he wants hold Wardo’s hand like girl and cry, but he _can’t_. Not when Wardo looks so fragile and washed-out and less real like he usually does, because Dustin’s scared he might break him.

“I’m so sorry!” he babbles. “I never meant to hurt you! If I hadn’t ordered pizza with everything… But it was just pizza! I didn’t know! I could’ve killed you. I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t. I’m so glad you’re okay. You’re going to be okay, right? You won’t sound like Darth Vader for the rest of your life, right?”

Wardo actually laughs. It’s a soft and croaky sound, but it might be the best thing Dustin has heard for a while now.

“Wasn’t your fault”, he says gently, easily. Just like that, as if it wasn’t a big deal. And somehow it helps more than anything else. And: “I’ll be fine.”

“You promise?” And if Dustin’s voice sounds a little bit shaky he blames it on some weird hospital-stuff that must be in the air.

“I promise.” Wardo coughs a little.

“You shouldn’t talk too much.” Chris says.   
And to Dustin he adds: “Dustin, stop talking. And sit down, you look like you’re about to faint. We might be in a hospital, but I’d rather not leave you here.”

“I’m not going to faint!” Dustin gasps, insulted.

Wardo’s smile gets even wider if possible. But then all of the sudden he frowns and looks around.  
“Where is Mark?” he croaks.

“Mark? He’s right behind… oh, for heaven’s sake.” Chris sighs, frustrated and Dustin can see why. The place at the door where Mark stood just a minute ago is empty. “I’m sorry, Wardo. Mark is just being difficult.”

“Mark!” Wardo tries to yell, but it comes out as a hoarse whisper. He clears his throat and looks as if he’s about to try it again, but Chris stops him.   
“Hey, no. No overexerting for you, we promised.”

“You don’t understand…“ Wardo sounds worried, which is all kinds of weird, because he’s the one laying in a hospital bed looking like death warmed over. He should be worrying about himself right now and not about Mark.

“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s just Mark being…Mark. It’s probably for the best if we bring him in tomorrow…”

“No!” Wardo shakes his head and he makes a movement as if he’s about to rise from the bed.

“What are you doing…oh no. No. Stay!” Chris orders. He sighs. “Okay. Fine. We’ll get him okay? We’ll get him. Dustin? Get Mark!”

Dustin nods and turns around. He is so confused that he doesn’t even bother to protest. If Wardo wants Mark (and heaven knows why) then Wardo gets Mark. Dustin might not be the most intimidating person there is, but he is fully prepared to threaten Mark with hacking or spilling Red Bull over his laptop if he doesn’t comply.

He isn’t keen on running around in a hospital full of very sick people and scary doctors, but it turns out he doesn’t have to run very far.

Mark is standing right outside of Wardo’s room, where he leans against the wall.  
He has one hand buried deep in his pocket and he holds his laptop with the other, while his fingers played idly with the hem of his long sleeve. Apparently he didn’t get very far.

“Mark.”

Mark doesn’t answer, but he averts his eyes.

“Wardo wants to see you.”

Mark clears his throat, but he still doesn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

“Yeah well. Why…uhm why don’t you go inside?” God. Dustin is seriously bad at this. Chris should’ve told him what to say.

“He’s okay.” Again it’s a statement, not question. Dustin answers nevertheless. “Yes.”

“Good.” Mark nods. “That’s…good.”

Dustin slumps against the wall next to him and pushes his hands in his pockets. Mark is being really weird. Well, it’s Mark, so ‘weird’ is actually the norm for him, but still.   
“Mark?” he asks. “What is your problem?”

Mark shrugs.   
Oh hell. Wardo would probably know what that means. Wardo has the uncanny ability to actually understand all of Mark’s barely noticeable expressions and little gestures. But not Dustin.   
Dustin is SO the wrong person to deal with Mark Zuckerberg.

“Look,” he tries, “this is easy. You know Wardo and you know he’s really stubborn. And he really wants to see you, like _now_. So if you don’t go in there right now, he will try to get up and search for you. That’s for sure. And then Chris will make me sit on him, I know he will, because Wardo’s not allowed to overexert himself, remember? And I have already have hurt him today. Don’t make me break his ribs too, just because I need to sit on him. Please. Just, don’t.”

Mark seems to actually consider this.   
Eventually he shrugs noncommittal as if he had planned to go inside anyway. “I suppose…I could say ‘hi’ while I’m here.”  
So maybe Dustin isn’t so bad in dealing with Mark.

“Yes, you could,” he agrees.

This time he lets Mark walk ahead, just in case he tries to evaporate again. He’s not making the same mistake twice.   
Mark’s steps become slower and slower the closer they get to the door and he awkwardly handles his laptop with one hand before he pushes the door open.

Chris turns around from where he stands next to Wardo’s bed and he looks almost impressed, so Dustin supposes he did good. He gives him a thumps up behind Mark’s back and Chris smiles in return.

“Mark.” Wardo tries to prop himself up a little bit more, but his arms seem to be made of jelly and he doesn’t get very far. He slumps back into his pillow. He looks even paler than he has before, but at the same time he sounds more relieved.

Dustin and Chris look at Mark somewhat expectantly. Marks plays with his sleeves again.

“Yeah well. I…” Mark is looking everywhere, just not at Wardo. He looks about as uncomfortable as he possibly can. “I really don’t have much time; I have a lot of coding to do. I missed two hours already and I can’t miss anymore.”

“Mark”, Wardo says again.

“You really can’t do this”, Mark says abruptly, still without looking at him. The change of topic is so sudden that Dustin almost doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “You can’t. You’re not allowed to eat shellfish ever again. It was stupid of you to do it. And you should really get an epi-pen, I researched it and you can easily buy one everywhere, so I don’t get why you don’t have one. That was stupid, too. You’re not allowed to eat pizza again.”

“Mark”, Wardo says softly, “come here.”

“You should’ve told me. You always expect me to remember stuff about you that’s quite redundant, and then you don’t tell me something that’s really important for me to know and I don’t get it. You’re not making any sense. I don’t understand why it’s so important to you that I remember your _birthday_ , but you don’t think it’s important for me to know that there’s food out there that _can kill you_. You never said there was and that’s just…that’s not okay. I can’t have that, Wardo, I just can’t. You can’t do that.”

Wardo reaches for Mark’s sleeve and that’s exactly the moment where Chris grabs Dustin’s arm as well and starts dragging him out of the room.

“What are you…?” Dustin hisses.

“Come on”, Chris orders quietly. “They need a moment.”

“Yes and I _need_ to see it!”

“Dustin.”

“Chris!”

Dustin sulks, but he lets himself get dragged out of the room without furthermore complaint. It’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime-moment, watching Mark Zuckerberg flounder, and he hopes Chris knows what they’re missing out on here.

The last thing Dustin sees is how Wardo drags Mark down on the edge of the bed and Mark complies obediently. “I’m sorry”, is the last thing he hears Wardo say. And: “I’m fine.”  
And Mark’s sullen little: “I _know_ that. It’s _not_ about that.”

Mark is such an idiot.   
But Wardo looks so happy and content to have Mark bitching at him that Dustin can’t really bring himself to mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Okay, I lied. There's going to be another part, but probably just a short (incredibly schmoopy) epilogue. made me do it.  **


	3. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly not beta-read. I'm terribly sorry.  
> Also .... way too sad. Again I'm really sorry. It just happened this way.

Dustin doesn’t really get why the hospital lets Eduardo go home after only two days. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these guys? Shouldn’t they have kept him there longer and run more tests and make sure it never ever happens again?   
The whole thing has been so horrible and really serious and _bad_ , and Wardo could’ve died, and no matter how often the doctors explain to him (in great detail), that Wardo is going to be fine as long as he avoids anything shellfish-related, he has a hard time believing it.

Wardo has stopped _breathing!_   
And what about the whole Arrhythmia-thing? He googled it and afterwards he wished he hadn’t. There’s something wrong with Wardo’s heart! Dustin managed to _hurt_ Wardo’s heart! How horrible is that? He never meant to hurt anybody’s heart ever.   
But no, the doctors keep insisting that Wardo’s going to be fine and that the thing he needs the most right now is to rest and take it easy. And they insist that no, Dustin cannot donate his own heart to Wardo, because he’s still going to need it.   
( _“Wrong blood type”, Mark reminds him helpfully._ )

So this is how Wardo ends up in their dorm room directly after the hospital releases him.   
There was just no way he could go to his room and be there on his own, when he might stop breathing any moment and nobody would be there to notice it. 

( _“Dustin, he won’t.” Chris pats his head “Seriously.”_

 _“You know, it’s not as if there’s any shellfish lying about, waiting to attack me and jump into my mouth”, Wardo adds._ ) 

That might be true or it might not. Dustin is not taking any chances.   
Fact is Wardo sleeps in Mark’s bed for the time being. 

_It’s not as if I ever sleep there anyway_ , Mark had argued and Dustin had silently agreed. Mark mostly falls asleep in front of his laptop after staying awake for three days straight.   
And since Mark has eyes in the back of his head, he can totally keep an eye on Wardo, while he codes. 

“Mark has eyes at the back of his head, you know”, Chris reminds him gently. 

“I know that.” Dustin folds his arms.

“Wardo is fine.” 

“I _know_.”

Neither Mark nor Wardo can hear them though. Wardo is deeply asleep in Mark’s bed and Mark is wired-in. And only that he types with the minimum amount of noise betrays the fact that he pays more attention to his surroundings than generally assumed. Well not to his surroundings. But he pays attention to Wardo. 

“Dustin.” Chris voice is gentle. “It was cute at the beginning, but now it starts to become very creepy very fast. You can’t keep standing in Mark’s room forever and you really don’t have to stare at Wardo all night to make sure, he’s all right. Go to bed. I mean it.”

Dustin fidgets uncomfortably. “Yeah, I… I just…” He isn’t able to put it in words, the nameless fear he has felt when he genuinely thought he had killed Wardo. It feels there should be more he should’ve done. And worse, it feels as if everything looks different now, because the world is suddenly a less safe place than it used to be. When even something like a pizza can hurt someone so bad (and not only someone, one of his best friends!), how can he go to bed when he doesn’t know what could happen next? 

Chris sighs. But somehow he seems to know what’s wrong, because he wordlessly grabs Dustin’s arm and drags him to his own room. 

“Spill”, he tells him, when he pushes Dustin down on his bed. “What’s wrong?”

“…can I get a beer first?”

“No.” 

Dustin makes puppy dog eyes and Chris groans. “You suck”, he tells him, but he goes and fetches two beers, which totally makes him an awesome best friend.   
They drink in silence and sit next to each other on Chris’ bed. It’s peaceful and nice and it’s…it’s good. It is how the world is supposed to be. 

“How…” Dustin asks eventually, “…how did you know what to do?”

“About what?” 

“Back then when it happened. You know, asking Wardo for an epi-pen and stuff.” Dustin plays with his bottle. “You were so calm and knew exactly what to say and do and whom to call. And I was just useless.”

“You weren’t.” 

“I was. I panicked. I didn’t even know what was happening. So if you hadn’t been there…” He doesn’t even dare finishing this thought. 

“I was scared shitless, too”, Chris admits quietly. “I just…I saw an anaphylactic shock before, you know. It was a few years ago. My cousin had an allergic reaction. Wasp sting. I felt pretty much useless too, back then when her face started swelling and she started to choke.” 

“Oh.” Dustin pauses.   
Usually Chris exudes so much calmness and confidence that it’s hard to imagine him as anything but capable to deal with any given situation. And now that he thinks about it, this must be one of the reasons why he can be friends with people like him or Mark, who are especially bad at dealing with anything non-computer-related, and not try to kill them on a regular basis.   
But obviously Chris loses his cool every once in a while, too. 

Dustin scoots a little bit closer and nudges him softly, which is a totally manly sign of sympathy. Because Dustin is nothing but a manly man. “Sorry. That must’ve sucked.” 

Chris smiles back at him as if he realizes the nudge is the equivalent of a hug. Maybe he does. Chris is awesome like that. “Tell me about it.” 

Dustin finishes his beer and plays pensively with the label. He doesn’t want it to be finished; because somehow it feels when his beer is done the talk is done, too. And he doesn’t want leave right now, because it’s so nice being here, sitting next to Chris and just being quiet together.   
He likes being quiet with Chris.   
How come he never realized how much fun it is to spend time with Chris even without an Xbox? 

“I just wanted you to know…” Dustin pauses. He searches for words and doesn’t find anything that even remotely gets his point across. “You were really cool.”

Chris blushes and shrugs a little. “It was nothing.”

“No, really. You’re like my personal Jedi Knight now. Batman got nothing on you.”

Chris’ smile is fond and it does funny little things to Dustin’s stomach. Well, that or it could be the hospital food. Dustin was allowed to eat Wardo’s desert, which he claimed looked like a disgusting blob.   
Probably the hospital food. Yeah. 

“So, are you going to be okay?” Chris asks. 

Dustin contemplates this question for a moment, before he nods. “I’ll be good. It just…it scared me and it’s going to take me a while to stop checking up on Wardo. Or on anybody I like for the matter. But I try not to be a creepy stalker about it, I promise. And I’m absolutely not planning on hacking Harvard’s menu lists so they’re never going to serve shellfish, like, ever again.” 

“Right. That’s good to know, but…are you going to be _okay_?”

Dustin rubs his hand across his neck, because it feels weird and humbling at the same time to have somebody’s attention solely focused on you. Kind of like Mark must feel whenever Wardo looks at him as if he’s the center of the universe. Which he does a lot, now that he thinks about it. 

“Dustin?” 

“I think I’ll be fine.” And the thing it, it’s true, at least for the time being. This time things can be fixed. 

“In case you’re not, you come to me, okay?” Chris makes him promise. “Because for a brilliant computer geek you can be shockingly stupid sometimes.”

“Hey! Verbally abusive much?” 

This time Chris is the one who nudges him and again it feels as if it’s actually supposed to be a hug, which is nice. Especially since they don’t have to talk about it or anything.   
But that what friends are for, right? It’s good to have friends even if you just realized how scarily easy it is to lose them. It’s the first time he ever thinks about it. Losing his friends. 

“Can you imagine us ever not being friends anymore?” he asks impulsively. 

“No.” Chris sounds appalled. “You?” 

“No. Not really. Can you imagine Mark and Wardo not being friends anymore?” 

“Never.” Chris rolls his eyes. “They’re like conjoined twins. Actually I don’t think Mark is capable of surviving on his own.”

“Yeah me neither. Also it would be awful. Like my parents getting a divorce –well, in case my parents were conjoined twins which is a really disturbing thought - and I had to choose between my mum and dad.” He shudders. “And they’re conjoined triplets. You forgot Mark’s laptop is probably attached to his hands.”

Chris laughs. “You really need to go to bed, Dustin.” 

“Hey, it’s true!”

“Never going to happen. And now go to bed.” 

He does go and he actually sleeps just fine this night. No nightmares about anybody suffocating or dying or Mark and Wardo breaking up or anything similar scary. 

It helps to know he has someone to talk to and to nudge him when he’s in need of a hug but can’t ask for one; and after a day Dustin even stops checking on Wardo every other minute. It’s not that he doesn’t feel like anything could happen anymore, but after all there’s Mark. And Mark obviously sucks at a lot of things, for example at being a decent human being, but surprisingly he takes looking after Wardo very serious. Well…in his own not very conventional, but undoubtedly effective way. 

When Dustin comes home this evening, Wardo is still in Mark’s bed (where he’s supposed to be for the next three days, doing nothing but rest and not overexert himself). Except that he’s not alone this time. Mark lies next to him, or more correctly he lies almost on top of him.   
Mark is asleep.   
Wardo not so much. 

“Huh”, Dustin says. He blinks. 

“Hey”, Wardo answers softly and makes a shushing noise. “Mark’s asleep”, he explains kind of redundantly. 

“Yeah.” Dustin raises an eyebrow. “I see that. Well. Yeah. No. What is that supposed to mean?” 

Wardo has the decency to blush. “It’s not…” He probably wants to say ‘ _it’s not what it looks like_ ’ but he’s smart enough not to. Everybody knows it’s always _exactly_ what it looks like.   
“I tried to learn”, he start anew. At Dustin’s accusing glare, he sighs. “Not much, but I can’t exactly chill out right now. It’s mid-term, for heaven’s sake. Mark threatened to lie on my books if I wouldn’t stop. I didn’t stop, so he…” He shrugs and points to Marks limp figure and yeah, Dustin can totally imagine Mark doing that. “And then he fell asleep. On my books. And my right arm”, he adds, “which is about to go numb.”

Dustin blinks some more. 

Wardo looks at him questioningly. “I know. It’s Mark. But still, this is weird even for him. Care to tell me what this is about?”

And you know, Dustin is not that good when it comes to understanding people, well not as good as Chris for example, and it’s not exactly easier with people like Mark who are strange per definition, but right in this moment, he has kind of an epiphany. 

“Huh”, he says again, because he remembers clear as day Marks voice telling him ‘ _Apparently his father is only sufficiently impressed with him if Wardo works until his brain starts to bleed out of his ears_ ’ and well, that might explain parts of it.   
Actually it explains a lot. 

“Back when…” he starts and immediately stops, because he has absolutely no idea how to explain this to Wardo. It’s kind of a ridiculous thought, but it’s so entirely and utterly ‘Mark’ to think like that, that it must be true.   
Mark somehow blames Wardo’s father, Dustin realizes, because if he wouldn’t always push so damn hard, Wardo wouldn’t have to learn so much to impress him. And then he wouldn’t have been so tired and exhausted and maybe he would’ve actually remembered to tell Dustin not to order anything with shellfish on it. Or maybe he would’ve been fully awake when Dustin delivered the pizza, so he would’ve realized there’s something potential lethal on it and would’ve not eaten it at all.   
Maybe. Maybe. 

Dustin doesn’t know. Nobody is going to know for sure.  
But it’s a thought that makes him angry and a little sad that Wardo’s hopeless little crusade to impress his father is able to hurt him like that. That it might actually damage something big one day. Dustin has no idea what this might be, but it feels like a premonition. 

Or maybe Dustin is just being silly. 

“Yeah well”, he eventually says, because there are simply no words to tell that to Wardo. “It’s Mark. You could always try to push him off. Mark’s a skinny little bitch. Even I could take him.” 

“Sure you could.” Wardo rolls his eyes, but then he looks down at Mark and his face softens. “Nah”, he says. “He could use some sleep anyway. I don’t mind.” 

Mark chooses this exact moment to make a small noise in his sleep and snuffles a little bit closer to Wardo. His face is pressed against Wardo’s throat and one hand is almost possessively clenched into Wardo’s shirt. It’s strangely cute in a way, like even asleep he’s trying to make sure Wardo doesn’t vanish on him. 

“Don’t think you ever had a choice on that matter”, Dustin states matter-of-factly. 

“Shut up.” But Wardo smiles contently and looks as if he wouldn’t mind staying like this for a while.   
Possibly forever.

It’s this moment right there that Dustin is going to remember later, above everything else.   
He remembers it when the shit hits the fan big time, when Wardo tries so hard to create a company that’s going to impress his father that he doesn’t realize that’s not what Mark wants. Dustin remembers it when Mark forgets what it means to behave like a decent human being and when he screws Wardo out of Facebook and out of his life and god, it’s so much worse than Dustin ever imagined it could be, so much worse than even the divorce of his parents could ever be. 

It’s the moment he remembers during the depositions and afterwards as clear as a photograph ingrained in his brain. Wardo and Mark lying on Mark’s bed together, forever entangled, intrinsically tied to each other and not meant to ever be separated, even if it hurts. 

And he always, always wonders if there’s anything he could’ve done to prevent this shit. If he should’ve known somehow. If it’s always the small things in life that screw you over, smalls things like a pizza that was never meant to hurt anybody. And he wonders if this is life that things that start out wonderful always end like this, in an ocean of hurt and betrayal and if you’re forever in danger of losing the people you love to the stupid mistakes you make. 

This is how ends up in front of Chris’ porch one evening when it’s all over and done. It’s past midnight and he’s drunk and everything is fucked up and he’s soaked from the rain and his face is wet. 

“I’m not fine”, he says when Chris opens the door and he feels like choking on his own voice. Chris looks pale and overtired. His blonde hair is a mess and he just stares at him. 

“I’m not fine…and you said…back then, you said if…” Dustin’s voice falters and dies in his throat, because he doesn’t even know if that counts anymore, a promise Chris has made to him years and lifetimes ago when everything was different and they couldn’t even imagine not being friends anymore. 

_“I’ll be fine.”  
“In case you’re not, you come to me, okay?”_

It’s stupid. He knows that Chris is not actually Batman and not even he can fix it. There’s nothing they or anybody else can do, not anymore. There’s no epi-pen to save them, no reanimation possible, no ambulance to call this time. 

Chris hugs him wordlessly and Dustin…he just holds on.


End file.
